Penhari watched with enjoyment and anger-anger at the constraints of her caste and at herself for her years of complacent acquiescence. Weren’t for Famtoche and his flagellum, I’d be a mole all my life, blind and burrowing. She laughed aloud as Desantro whipped the kerchief off her head and wiped at her face without missing a beat of her swaying, stamping dance or a syllable of her song.
“Corrupting the slaves, too, dear sister?” Famtoche Banddah lounged in the doorwindow, one arm hanging, the other curled about his belt. His black eyes were empty as the windows, his smile a grimace.
Desantro’s face went blank and she dropped to her stomach, stretched out flat on the grass, her hands in front of her, palms pressed together.
Penhari turned slowly, swinging her feet off the longchair, pushing herself up so she was standing between Famtoche and the slave. “What do you want, brother?”
“When I hear my sister is ill, how can. I stay away?”
“Easily, dear brother. What do you want?”
He tapped his fingers against the leather of the belt; his eyes softened and he smiled so sweetly she knew he was remembering and as the silence stretched on, knew he was making sure she understood the images he was seeing.
She kept her face impassive. She’d had years of practice.
He straightened up. “Word came to me you tried to leave your suite last night. Don’t.” He stepped back into the room; over his shoulder, he said, “Or we’ll have another lesson.”
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Penhari stood slumped, her hands clenched.
An arm came around her shoulders. With that gentleness of touch that always surprised her, Desantro hugged her, then led her to the longchair.
“Hai-hai, don’t you fuss youself, heshal. Rest y’ now while I finish the sweeping and see what notions. I en dig up.”
In the doorwindow she turned, her face alive with laughter. “One thing still on, heshal. I wanna see coin before I do aught.”
Chapter 19. The God on Her Shoulders
A gray-brown beast trotting beside her, the Honeychild danced with the Honey Dancers through the kariams of the High City, drawing women from the towers and the tenements, adding their voices to the rising-falling howl that vibrated from tower to tower. Wild Magic swirled among them, caught in the net of Abeyhamal’s Summoning.
OW ooo OUM OWWW ooo AHHH UM Their mouths gaped wide, snapped shut, stretched again, their eyes stared-they saw not the towers along the kariams but mica-bright wings like frozen light. Wild Magic grew wings that vibrated and sang so high a note the sound pierced the ears.
OW ooo OUM OWWW ooo AHHH UM
In convoluted double loops they danced, filling the kariams, crossing the Inner Ring Road to the towers of the Cheoshim. Wild Magic dipped and rose, undulating with the rise and fall of the humming howl.
OW ooo OUM OWWW ooo AIIHH UM They circled a Cheoshim tower, stomping and weaving in time with the SOUND-hundreds of women moving together, ecstatic and terrible, a maelstrom of magic force pressing against the tower. Wild Magic merged into a fog that flowed in silver-gray streamers along the lines of power.
Windows shattered and women came out to join the dance.
The air shivered.
Mica wings splintered the sunlight, swept away. Honeychild, Honey Beast, Honey Dancers ran after them. The women ran after them.
The Wild Magic coursed with them.
OW ooo OUM OWWW ooo AHHH UM Another tower.
Windows shattered.
Men swarmed out and tried to beat the women off.
The women ululated and ripped into them with teeth and claws, trampled them, tore them to bloody shreds and went on, following the light-splintering wings and the dancing Honeychild and the Honeychild’s magic beast.
Wild Magic swept along with them.
OW ooo OUM OWWW ooo AHHH UM
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The Prophet marched grim-faced along a kariam on the west side, the STRIKER band stomping behind him, the three pairs of Cheoshim in the front rank each holding the arms of a trembling man, three prisoners bound for the flogging posts.
Ailiki weaving about her feet, Faan danced blank-eyed along a kariam on the east side, the Dancers from the Low City revolving in complex spirals about her, more than a thousand ecstatic women dancing behind her, maenads seized by their god.
Wild Magic came together and clustered about the Honeychild like a veil of silver toile fluttering in unfelt winds.
OW ooo OUM OWWW ooo AHHH UM
The Prophet heard the humming howl, but ignored it. He marched over the meager piles of merchandise without bothering where he put his feet; the Cheoshim following him elbowed merchants and buyers alike out of their way. Nothing mattered but the lessoning and the purifying of the City and with it the Land.
› › ‹ ‹
Ailiki echoing her steps, Faan danced into the Sok Circle, turning and swaying in lazy eights, veiled and revealed, veiled and revealed, while the Honey Dancers split and spun around the edges of the Circle, the hordes of women dividing and dancing after then, meeting behind the STRIKER band on the far side of the Circle, swirling in a double whirl around and around-an engine of power pouring into the Honey Mother’s hands.
OW ooo OUM OWWW ooo AHHH UM The Prophet spread his arms and glared at her. “Yellow ‘Treez!” he cried. “Begone!”
Rivers of red fire burst from his palms and roared at the Honeychild.
Wild Magic became a thousand wings, brushed and blew the fire harmlessly into the sky.
Faan burned gold and white. Lightning leapt from her fingers, struck at the Prophet; it glanced off black hands that came down around him, struck several of the Cheoshim behind him and seared them to sudden ash.
The prisoners-suddenly loosed-ran blindly away.
The air in the Circle shook with heat and fire. Hair shriveled and spots on clothing smoldered.
The STRIKER band shouted CHUMAVAYAL! and rushed at the nearest women, clubs, knives, spears, torches striking at them, fists and feet striking at them. Dancing women went down, were trampled.
A woman’s skirt caught fire, turned her into a torch-
she burned in ecstacy, unafraid, leapt at a Cheoshim, curled arms and legs about him and took him with her into ash.
More women went down with smashed heads and other wounds, many dead before they hit the paving stones.
Women died and died, were mutilated, beaten, hurt.
Cheoshim died, throats ripped out by maenad teeth, smothered by women piling on them, died torn apart, arms wrenched from their bodies, wrists bitten open.
The STRIKER band died, twenty young man scattered in pieces across the Sok Circle.
For every man, four women died and another four were badly hurt, but there were hundreds of women there.
In the center of the charnel ground, the Prophet and Faan faced each other, one burning red, one burning gold.
Abruptly, the light vanished from both.
Wild Magic hovered in a fog about Faan, dulled and diminished.
The Prophet looked drained and old, though he’d lost none of his loathing for Faan and all she represented. “Begone, habatrize,” he croaked at her. “Filth!”
Faan swept her eyes along his body, feet to head, then laughed, a harsh bitter sound. “Talk about filth, louse breeder, when was your last bath? Good thing I’m downwind, or RI be upchucking my lunch.” She turned her back on him and sashayed off, wiggling her behind at him with mocking exaggeration.
The suddenly sobered women from the towers left the dead behind and crept back into their apartments; many of them took a last look around, packed up what they could carry, and went trudging across the Wood Bridge to the Low City.